Balance, Not Perfection: Trust, Gut Health, and Practical Recovery from Crohn’s & Colitis with Dane Johnson

[00:00:03] Hi, I'm Dr Russell Thackeray and welcome to Resilience Unravelled, a podcast with new ideas, new thoughts and new thinking about resilience. Guests with remarkable stories, products and services that can really power up your own mindset and resilience. You can also go to our site for more information, to ask questions or to access some of our resources at resilienceunravelled.com. Let's get started.

[00:00:33] Hey, and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled. And it's very rare we have a second time around guest and Ephraim Ebstein is back with us tonight because I remember we had a fantastic chat all those years ago. And he's been doing all sorts of interesting and groovy things around the subjects of Crohns and colitis and gut health. And it's always good for people who are thinking about their resilience, certainly to be thinking about gut health, which is one of my own passions. So first of all, Dane, welcome to you.

[00:01:01] Thank you so much for having me again. I'm so blessed to be here and anyone who's listening. I hope we can explore and learn today, but I just feel very grateful to be here and hopefully we can restore that gut and do it in a practical way, in a sensible way and one that actually can get us in balance. For those people who don't remember the previous episode, just tell us just a little three seconds about you.

[00:01:21] Yeah. So I'm a pain to purpose guy. I got chronically sick around 19 to 23 years old, and I was diagnosed with both ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. These are forms of inflammatory bowel disease that are considered chronic and incurable. The doctors had put me on lifelong biologics, steroids, other medications, but they weren't effective enough to where I was starting to become life threatening.

[00:01:45] My 27th birthday, I nearly passed away from these complications, and I had to resort to becoming self empowered. And what can I do along with my doctor? What can I do to really get myself right? How can I get out of this nightmare, this hellish experience, spiritually, emotionally, physically? I was 120 pounds at 6'2", in a wheelchair at a point, housebound for a year, and I'd already failed all the medications. So I was eventually able to take back my life, and I've helped thousands of other people do the same.

[00:02:15] And it's all about finding your answer, not the answer, and do it in a way that really makes sense for each one of us. We all need our own unique answer, and we need to combine everything, conventional, holistic, mental, spiritual, to help us get our lives back. Because we don't deserve to be sick, we deserve to be healthy, and we can be. Yeah. And the conditions you're talking about, I don't know if the conditions is the right word, actually, but autoimmune diseases, aren't they? They fall into that category of things, don't they?

[00:02:43] Yeah. It's where your body is attacking itself, is the layman's terms that we like to explain it. Lupus or rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis are other examples of this. And Crohn's and colitis is a bit of an epidemic. It's really jumping right now in Canada, UK, parts of Europe, and the United States. So, for instance, in 1950, it really was an unheard of disease. It was very little of it.

[00:03:08] By 1999, just in America, about 1 million people diagnosed, and we saw that same kind of trajectory in the UK. And then it's doubled from the year of 99 to 2015, and then doubled again from 2015 to about 2022. So a 15-year gap, and then a 7-year gap to double the amount of people diagnosed. Now, I suspect I know the answer to this question, but what's behind that doubling and doubling?

[00:03:34] We've got the woo-woo answers, and we've got the conventional answers, and then we've got what each one of us think happened to us. But I'll tell you, it's toxins. It's unchecked pathogens. It's, I would say, much larger amounts of stress in the body, like EMF, poor sleep, blue light. Just the body's natural shield is lowered. And you can't pin it on one thing. So I think the best way to say it, Dr Russell Thackeray, is it's everything combined that's weakening the body.

[00:04:03] And once it snaps, it's really hard to rebuild. And then we get stuck in this vicious cycle. Yeah, that's interesting. I guess I thought, let me show you, you're going to turn to auto-processed foods, because my understanding is that they're the sort of root cause of many of the autoimmune issues, aren't they? And poor gut health and poor sleep at the root of a lot of challenging issues in the human body, aren't they? Great thought and great question there.

[00:04:26] Is it the lack of nutrients in the food that's driving this, or is it the toxins in the food that's driving this? Or both. Or both. And you're right, it's both. But I think that's one parallel we haven't thought about that say, wait, it's not just that the tomato doesn't have enough of the lysopene in it anymore. It's the fact that the tomato is filled with glyphosate.

[00:04:52] It's the fact that the tomato also has other types of spraying agents on it that are disrupting the natural divine microbiome. Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with you. Because actually, I think, I was listening to a very noted doctor who isn't talking about the ingredients on the back of different foods. And I think Coca-Cola in your country has something like 36 ingredients. And it has eight in our country. Because actually, there's so many more chemicals, preservatives.

[00:05:22] And this is the issue. And the point you're talking about, glyphosates and what's sprayed in this setting. And the fact that you can get apples, which are green beans through a warehouse, which are two years old before you get them. You know, fruit doesn't last for two years. And we notice that a lot when we go to the States. I did before, when we used to go to the States. You notice the different tastes of food. You notice the different stuff in the chocolate. There are so many more chemicals in US foods.

[00:05:47] And you go to these sort of areas in the world which are notoriously the places with greatest health. The blue zones, for example. They're the most simple foods with the fewest ingredients. I think it's a phrase, isn't it? If there's more than four things on the back of a packet of food, you shouldn't be touching it. But I think you said it well. And here's where it gets really perplexed. We can sit here and we all, I think, have heard why we're getting sick.

[00:06:13] Toxins, pathogens, unchecked stress, government not regulating what's in our air, food, and water. Right? Chemicals, toxins, man-made stuff. But how do we fix it? Not just fix the world, but how do we fix our own health? So, okay, great. My microbiome has been injured. I've got toxins throughout my body. My gut lining is now damaged. My digestion is weakened. My nervous system's a wreck. I'm stuck in fight or flight. So, what does the average person start to do to start defending against these things?

[00:06:42] I can only eat at home or try to live on oxygen. That's how a lot of us just feel like we can't, we've got to eat air. Right? Okay, I get rid of McDonald's. I get rid of alcohol. I get rid of the coffee. I get rid of the bad foods. But now what? My microbiome's still injured. I've still got leaky gut. I've still got biofilms. I've still got dysbiosis. And it's not a matter of saying, oh, this is hocus pocus. Because we don't know. Is it really parasites? Is it not? We don't know. We can, we, there's a lot of deeper thinking there.

[00:07:11] But we do know that there's a lack of balance in our body. So what do we do to regain balance? And I think that's where all of us need to spend our time, energy, is to say, okay, I'm aware this stuff is poisonous. What can I do to start taking back and reclaiming my health besides avoidance? And what do you mean by balance? What does balance actually mean in practice? Great question. Balance, everything in the body is balanced. You can't eradicate anything.

[00:07:39] So if you get an E. coli infection, you can't eradicate the E. coli. But you can minimize it so much that it doesn't cause an acute or chronic inflammatory response. And if it's minimized to a certain point, it might not cause a autoimmune reaction. So dysbiosis means that something is already there, but it's just grown out of balance. Colonic dysbiosis means the colon. SIBO means it's out of balance in the small intestine. SIFO means it's fungal that's out of balance in the small intestine. So it's not necessarily about eradication.

[00:08:08] It's about balance. And so without diversity and balance in the microbiome, the immune system doesn't get nurtured in a sustainable way. And it's the same thing with life. Life is about balance. You're in love until you're not, right? You're healthy until you're not. You're breathing until you're not. So there has to be a balance of inhale and exhale. There has to be a balance of I love yous and I hate yous. There has to be a balance of good microbiome and poor microbiome and good eating and bad eating.

[00:08:36] And so we spend a lot of time trying to get aware of how we live in an alien world that is no longer real food. And once we get past that, we have to say, okay, I can start eating real food again, but that doesn't necessarily put me in balance. And that's where people are struggling where they're on these restrictive eating plans, where it's helping, but it's not really solving the root problems. And that's where we get stuck.

[00:09:01] Is it saying, I've been carnivore, or I've only ate fruit, or I did intermittent fasting, or I got rid of poor foods, but I still am bloated. I'm still crampy. My skin's still not great. I've still got chronic fatigue. I've still got brain fog. I've still got arthritic pains. And that's where I think the functional medicine side of things is trying to, or the word, quote unquote, biohacking is trying to come in and give our body something that the abstinence of something can't do.

[00:09:30] So I just got rid of it, and then it fixes itself. It doesn't happen always. Yeah. And there's a lot of suspicion about biohacking now, isn't there? Because biohacking often just ends up in a series of hormones. That's not hormones. A series of medicines or pills or something that someone has dreamt up, often without much supervision or guidance. And there are a lot of supplements and such like, which really make your urine the most expensive urine that you can possibly have,

[00:09:59] because the vast majority of vitamins don't work by having them ingested through either pills or drinks. They don't work that way. And I don't know if you're particularly, what's the word? Maybe I'm a bit overly cynical about that world, having met quite a few people from the biohacking world, because it also ends up in buying my supplements. What about you? Do you think that there's enough legitimacy in that world? Even if you look at Dave Asprey, who is a godfather, a lot of it. Some of his claims are extraordinarily unproven and false.

[00:10:29] And listen to these biohacking experts. Now, I am quite on board with everything you've said so far. Completely agree with everything you've said. But I just wonder whether that will has gone a bit out of balance. Yeah. And just to back it up a little bit on who might even speak on this, I'm just a guy who got deathly sick. And I just wanted to build what I needed when I was chronically sick. And I spent a fortune. Not me. I was broke.

[00:10:57] My parents and family spent a fortune when I was a kid. Good old parents. I was trying to save the day. And I'm here just to try to help and say, I believe I can help say this is worth it. This is not worth it. From time, energy, and money, the three currencies we have. And I do think that when you look at supplements, you have to be very careful. So you have to decide a few things. I think you should only work with family-owned companies who have a mission, who do this thing very well.

[00:11:23] Once you start making 200 SKUs, 250 SKUs, 300 SKUs from a company's point of view, you stop being great at one thing. And then money becomes so important. And that's the problem with capitalism. It's hard to always be conscious in your capitalism if you're constantly scaling. And so what I do is I try to partner with companies that are family-owned, high mission, and do this one thing the best. I think nature and probiotics is the best. I think joy of the mountains, wild of oregano in Canada is the best at making a two-ingredient

[00:11:51] dropper form, very robust species with high-dose carvacrol that can kill parasites and overgrown candida and bacteria to help regain that balance. That's being used properly. So I think that biohacking is the ability to help the body do something that it couldn't do beforehand. And we know that biohacking is possible. I think some of the best biohackers are actually bodybuilders who make their body just transform into this thing. And you could say it's good for you or not good for you.

[00:12:18] No one said that biohacking is always good for you if you don't know what you're doing. So that's where, okay, wait a minute. I can do biohacking. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to live longer or have a better life. So you have to be aware of that. I think when we just take that idea of supplements, two things we can do to protect ourself. Don't take anything that you can't give me two to three sentences on what it does and why you are personally taking it. And don't take anything unless you back up that company. Because everyone can make a butyrate or a probiotic or a multivitamin or omega-3.

[00:12:48] But why specifically that company and that product? Yeah. And I think that's why we look for partners out here who spend all their time trying to research and find and utilize the best. And integrity is very important because this is all new for a lot of us. No one, our parents, and I'm sure your parents never spent any kind of money on supplements or health. It wasn't, you saw your doctor, you didn't see your doctor. And they were really healthy. So we're in this conundrum, right? We're in this, yeah, that really helped.

[00:13:16] Well, they also, there was no such thing as organic food. There's no such thing as toxins in the air. There was, you know, right before their parents, it was horses and buggies. It wasn't fumes out of a car. It wasn't, there wasn't glyphosate in our rainwater. So on one hand, yes, it is true. We have a new world. But on the other hand, we're still trying to add governing around this. And you said a lot of stuff about the problem in the United States. Here's another one that's a problem. They regulate what's on the outside of the bottle.

[00:13:44] They don't regulate what's on the inside of the capsule. To your point. And I think you're hitting on an important point here because point of view resilience, there's a lot of that actually about the choices you make. And I think a lot of people, and this may come down to mindset later on, which I do think is part of the process. But we're often very cheap with ourselves. We'll say, I need something. I need this thing, whatever this thing might be.

[00:14:08] So we go to Amazon and we buy possibly the lowest cost it might be or whatever European alternatives to Amazon is tomorrow. And you get that. And I know with the work we did in CBD, looking at CBD strains, I think we ordered something like 15 or 16 different CBD products from Amazon. And only something like three of them had actually any CBD in. And of those three, the doses which had them were incorrect. So I think checking things out. I think you're right.

[00:14:37] Being able to go back to the source, smaller companies. Don't be cheap with yourself. It seems really odd, doesn't it, that we have a mindset which is to skimp on our own health. And then we're surprised when we're falling apart. That's why the world needs someone like you who's going out and doing the research. Both of us, right? We're here because, and this is the hard thing. We need people who have trust and integrity and are moving forward to create an impact where the dollar is not the main reason. Impact is the main reason.

[00:15:05] It has to be morals over money. It has to be, or else we're just in a world where everything, you'll say whatever, you'll do whatever. And if you don't have a standard as a professional, then we're all screwed. Because I'm also in the same boat. Like, who do I trust with my stuff? We all need other humans. Every coach needs a coach. Every doctor needs a doctor. Every human needs another human. We work together. We win together or we lose together.

[00:15:34] So we need to come together and say, like, where is their trust and where is their integrity? And if I was to give everyone one big piece of advice to take away is build trust and integrity with who you listen to and who you work with. And don't think about how much they cost. Because if they have more trust and integrity, they're maybe worth 10 or 20% more. And man, did I spend a waste a ton of money on three products that didn't work when I could have bought one that really did. Yeah. And it would have cost maybe that one product was 80 bucks and those three were 39.95.

[00:16:02] And I ended up spending 110 on something that made me choke down more pills, think about it more and didn't really do anything. Or one actually did. Now, the problem is none of us came into this world. Most of us listening didn't say, I want to be a naturopath physician. I want to learn about the body. That's what I want to do for a living. No, we're carpenters. We're electricians. We're in sales. We're business people. So we're being forced to learn something we never wanted to learn. And we were told we could outsource it to the guy in the white coat when we grew up.

[00:16:31] So we're in this conundrum. We don't know who to trust. We don't really want to do this. Some of us are deciding to take it on like me. I took it on because I got sick for so many years outsourcing the leadership of my health. And it's interesting. It's interesting you talk about that because a lot of the white coat issues are because a lot of doctors are sponsored by particular drug companies. A lot of doctors don't do the research. They're not up to date with current practice. They're not at the leading edge of what's going on.

[00:16:59] They're very much behind the times because of the way systems work in medical communities. So you often find that you are educating doctors when you go in and say, have you heard of this thing? And they say, I've never heard of it. What's that? And I'm very suspicious of that thing. I was listening to someone talking about the effects of medicinal cannabis this morning. Something I put out there I believe in for the right things. I think medicinal cannabis is really good. It's got all sorts of particular benefits, but controlled, regulate and such like.

[00:17:29] And someone had been getting prescribed pills and had not been taking the pills for six months and kept going back and being told by the doctor, are you getting better? You're getting better? You're getting better. At the end of six months, he said, I haven't taken any of those pills. I've just taken cannabis. To which the doctor said, oh, but cannabis doesn't work. He said, I've just proved to you it does. And I think, so I think we have to do our own research, don't we? We have to. Yeah, you have to. And you have to sign up to someone.

[00:17:56] And if you do find someone that you really believe, it's always good to listen to them, but also to the people who disagree with them as well. It's to check about and to go back and forth, isn't it? Because you're right. I think what you've said there is really spot on. It's better to buy one thing that works than the five things which don't work, but seem cheaper at the outset. But how do you know if it works? This is it. This is the big problem, isn't it? Also, some of the issues are there are things which may not work for you that might work for me.

[00:18:23] And so we can, when you say we all have to do our own research, yes, everyone, you will do better taking on a certain amount. But this, again, this is not people's profession. So we're getting into this position where we need somewhere to go that we have the two most important things, trust and integrity, because healing is not linear. And you can take the best CBD, you can take the best probiotic, you can take the best anything that helps with ulcerative colitis, Crohn's, autoimmune, dementia, low energy, any of that.

[00:18:50] And it might not work perfect for you, but it doesn't mean you maybe should stop it. And that's where there has to be trust. You have to trust who you're working with. So you need a team of people who are on a mission. So look for that mission, look for that integrity and realize it's not a straight line. You always try to hit the ball like you're going to hit it out of the park, but you got to make space for that shift. And I think the responsibility is whatever you take, you need to be able to write just two to, I always say this, two to three sentences on what you're taking and why.

[00:19:19] If you can't do that, you shouldn't be taking it. And then you should be able to say something about why this specific company, who are they? Do they have a good certificate of analysis? Are they family owned? Do they make a hundred different products? They do this one thing really good. And if they're $10 more, it's the best $10 you ever spent. And it's likely that the solution to your problem is unlikely to be someone shouting at you from TikTok. Yeah. Because actually those fast fixes, oh, this thing could take this. It'll work really brilliantly. Take this. It's on special offer today.

[00:19:49] It's almost the inverse thing, isn't it? That the more you hear something, the less reliable it often is because there's so much schnozzle and salesmanship as opposed to efficacy. And trust, as you say. And Dr. Russell, would it be okay if I share maybe, let's say, top three to top five supplements I think actually work and companies actually think work? And so I'd give someone some takeaways they could use today. When you're dealing with gut health, the number one product it has that I think everyone should really consider is a probiotic.

[00:20:17] But the chance of a probiotic being any good, I'd say about 95% are poor quality. Because you're talking about a single cell living organism that's supposed to work in unison with your body. Get through the gastric juices and be able to cultivate in the large or small intestine and not die in the process. Good luck. And then this thing's going to be made in a laboratory, put into a capsule, shipped God knows where, stored in some sort of warehouse. And then you're going to ingest it. And it's still going to live through you, your esophagus, your stomach acid into the small intestine.

[00:20:46] And so what, for an example of that, you need authenticity. The latest advanced research around supplements, I think is a lot of marketing. What you need is something that's actually what it is. Dr Russell Thackeray said, CBDs, they're not the right dosage and they don't even have it in it. And this is what you're going to find at Walmart, Amazon, Target. You're going to find a lot of stuff that's just sugar pills. So you need a certificate of analysis, third-party testing. I think, and you need someone who can make it in-house.

[00:21:12] If I can get family-owned, good CFA, third-party testing in-house, and then they can make it in-house and not delegate out. The only probiotic company I know in the world who makes their own probiotic in-house, formulates, distributes, all that themselves is Natrin Probiotics, N-A-T-R-E-N. They have their own warehouse in Westlake Village, California, where they formulate, they distribute everything. So if I'm working with someone, I say, you need this specific strain that has over 100 years

[00:21:40] of clinical research, like Bifido-Infantis, Bifido-Longum, Bifido-Bacterium Bifidum, Lactobacillus Acidophilus, Lactobacillus Bulgaricus. Those are the strains I like to work on. I know I'm getting them formulated in the right warehouse, going from the warehouse they were just made right out of the oven to your doorstep, no middleman. And that's why I don't even stock them in my warehouse. Because we carry, we have a warehouse in Florida where we move lots of supplements, but I don't carry the probiotics unless I absolutely have to, because I know I can get them more authentic.

[00:22:09] The biggest word you want to look out there for supplements is authenticity. Show me the story before you look at the modern day advancements of they have this prebiotic and this new SBO in there, and they've got this new way of forming. Like, show me something that can survive and that can get to my doorstep and be authentic. And probiotics are living single cell organisms, and they have their own initiatives. They're not just out there to save the day. Some of them are bad. Some of them are good.

[00:22:35] So I think natrin, and I'll tell you another one, Dr. Russell, it's powdered form. If I can get a single strain, I think one of the biggest mistakes people are making with natrin, they put 15 different types of species in one little capsule that you couldn't even fit a teaspoon. A teaspoon is probably about two to three capsules worth for, let's say, a double zero size vegetarian capsule. So that means I've just got a bunch of CFUs that are competing against the same environment and food that are probably going to kill each other.

[00:23:04] And it's going to sit in there for God knows how long. I'm going to take it. They're not even living by the time they get in there. And that's where we don't, the government's not going to regulate what's actually living in a probiotic strain. So with natrin, what I love is I can do single strain ingredient powders. One teaspoon is about 4 billion CFUs. But you can go to the store and get one capsule at 50 billion CFUs with 12 strains. So I just gave you a little bit of a narrative of why that has more authenticity, why I think it can have a better result.

[00:23:34] And I've been using it for over 10 years. And I've used it on thousands of people with IBD. And I use it a very specific way. It's not just take this capsule. It's what strain, what dose, why, what time of day. And I customize that to each person. Another example is like RDLA. You should check this out, Dr. Russell. Anyone who has Crohn's, colitis, or inflammation in the colon should be checking out this metabolite of alpha lipoic acid. And the research is starting to really come out on it. It's called RD-hydrolipoic acid.

[00:24:00] And what it acts is, is it acts as a massive antioxidant that reduces oxidative stress that they found with people with ulcerative colitis cannot eliminate. And that's why misalamine works so well. Salamine is basically a 5-ASA stomach odor that helps the body metabolize hydrogen peroxide, which is a buildup of an oxidative stress that people with ulcerative colitis cannot get rid of in their colon, which is why they have trouble. It's with polysaccharides and complex carbs and things like that, even if they're organic and glyphosate-free.

[00:24:30] So that's a really cool one that's getting a lot of research behind it, that's doing wonders, that has low risk and high reward you can research out there. And then, but the problem is, and this is another side of it, Dr. Russell, is that the government's regulating it so much that you can't get it. So now we're on the other side of it. It's like the government doesn't regulate it all. And then some of the good stuff, the government's over-regulating, and now I can't get it. And it's 300 bucks for a bottle. So that's in your country. That's because if it's marketed to treat or prevent a specific disease, it goes through

[00:24:59] stricter drug approval, isn't that? Is that right? Yeah. It does. They say, but the idea of treat, cure, prevent, it's all politics, right? But that's something that I want to give an example that you can look at. There's a company where it's called Premier Labs. You can do your research. This is not medical advice. You can go check that out. It's neat, and you have to formulate it with an oil at home. But there's another one out there that needs more attention in a very similar standard that works really well for IBD. It's called Indigo Naturalis or King Dai.

[00:25:29] It's a Chinese herb that people have been using for a long time. A lot of good research is coming out that it can induce remission in severe ulcerative colitis or help with blood bleeding in the stool. And a lot of people are now putting a lot of money behind it to try to even isolate why it's working so well to calm down cytokine reactions. But this is this cheap little herb that's calming down bleeding.

[00:25:55] And there's some great mice studies predominantly because governments don't want to put a lot of money behind it. If you want to get human trials, you need millions of dollars. And there's a lot of red tape because how does big pharma feel about that? Yeah. But it's important to say, isn't it? I'm just going to leap in here. That if you've got blood in your stool, you should have got the doctor as well to the jeep, especially in our country. I don't know about yours, but certainly now is good. Get there. But I think all of these other things that you're wraparounds are things which you can do. You talk about the inflammation effects of stress. You're absolutely right, isn't it?

[00:26:24] But the best way to deal with stress is to cut the root source out, which is to calm the stress reaction down at the beginning. So that's the work we do on the mindset of things. And I think it's that thing, isn't it? You've got to think about the causes, how you're treating the system, but also then how you've been in longevity or resilience into your own body, isn't it? Because a lot of people get something, they cure it or they solve it, and then they stop again. And then surprise, surprise, it all goes wrong again.

[00:26:54] It's a bit like dieting. Isn't this why you get your dieting and poor food habits, isn't it? You have a month, clean eating. And then you think, oh, let's go down and have a massive binge now and get ourselves down to, I think it's Walmart in your country and have those massive donuts and such like. And then you're surprised when you've got all this food coma thing going on. So that's why I like what you were talking about earlier. This is this idea that you have a balance in your life, don't you? And there will be times when you do things wrong or difficultly or badly or whatever you want to phrase you want to use.

[00:27:21] But for the vast majority of you're treating yourself well, that doesn't matter so much, does it? Go ahead. No, go for it. I was going to say, that's why the word's balance, not perfection. Yeah, absolutely. We seek balance. I don't want to live in a cage. I don't think anyone listening to this wants to live in a cage where I can't have a drink of something or you can't eat something. I can't have a celebration cake. I don't want to sit here because now we're living in a trauma state of food fear. Now we're living in a state that we're like, I used to think of myself as a bubble boy.

[00:27:51] I had to walk around with this big bubble around me and I couldn't touch or do or see anything because of the fear of going to the ER room again. And so balance is really important. But when you restore that microbiome, when you restore the digestion and the gut lining and you have these tools that can help you and that you feel confident on and you and your doctor are speaking about, you can start to have more space. Here's an interesting thought, Dr. Russell. As my digestion and fire got stronger, as my gut lining got better, as the balance came

[00:28:19] back, I found that I could eat twice as much food variety with half or none of the symptoms. Yeah, that's the key. That's the key, right? And then you said something earlier about this idea that then it comes back again. What if you just took out the idea of health and we used any other type of life truth? If you stop selling your wife, I love you, will the arguments come back again? If you stop going for to the gym, will the belly fat come back again? Yeah.

[00:28:47] If you stop reading on optimism and self-help and mindset, will the anxiety and I'm never going to be good enough come back again? I think what you just said there, balance, not perfectionism, is really important because all of these things, they're slightly boring, aren't they? We should eat well. We should drink in moderation. We should exercise somewhat. We should do these things. And it's the people that go mad and binge in all those sorts of areas.

[00:29:15] And then they have broken knees and all this sort of stuff. They can't sustain it. Sometimes you just have to just knuckle down and just make sensible, easy decisions. And like you say, if you decide that one night you're going to go out and eat something awful because you're with company and you're having a lovely night with loads of people, it doesn't hurt you as much because the average is in the right place, isn't it? And I think that's the key.

[00:29:41] It's that there's a sort of a tedium to doing things well because you have to do it for the long term, don't you? There's a deeper key right there that I love, which is what if I could go out with my friends and have a great time and not desire to poison myself? What if I could actually just reframe that we could have the best time of our lives and I don't need to hurt myself anymore? Yeah. That's what happened to me when I got chronically sick is that I had to reframe my life.

[00:30:06] And another thing is we talk about balance, but the hard thing is once you get sick, balance is not enough. Now I've got to become extremely aggressive to get into balance again. You've got to rebalance. Yeah. If you tear your ACL, there's no, I got to take it easy. No, you need to stay off your knee. You need to do physical therapy every day. Ice it. You need to be on it because, and that's where I think a lot of us are getting lost. You're like, I'm fine being in balance, but I'm chronically sick. Yeah. So if I'm going to heal, I need to actually be zealous.

[00:30:37] Yeah. Some would say even hubris in my efforts. My doctors will probably say that in a way, but what else am I going to do? I'm on drugs for the rest of my life. We're talking surgery. We're talking pain. I don't want to talk fake. I don't want to talk crazy, but what can we do? I think a lot of us are suffering and we're feeling like there's no oxygen in the room. What else can I do? I'm willing, but I need it to be sensible. I need it to be something that I make sense to me. I need it to be affordable. What else can I do? I think that's where I was.

[00:31:07] And that's where I got to that place of, I no longer want to poison myself. I want to be there. If I'm with my friends, I'm here for you. I'm not here for the donut. I'm not here for the liquor. I'm here for you, this love, this connection. And I had to rebuild my ability to connect with humans and love on humans and not need an external force to do it. And it was because I got chronically sick and nearly died of disease that it made me go there, really made me go there and really say, I'm done.

[00:31:34] I'm done being sick and I'm done living in this Western world of poison. And I think that could do it. And then you get in a new balance because I think you and I might have a different balance than some people listening where their balance is drink alcohol three to four days a week, go to the pub, have fast food for lunch. I'll try to get better with my breakfast. Maybe I'll skip breakfast here and there. For you and I, we might already be past that where our balance is at another level of norm and we're okay at that. So how do we get up there?

[00:32:03] And then it's hard at first, but then it gets in balance as you do it. I think you're probably much better at this than I am. So I think, but I think you've come from a, you've come from a much lower base for being so unwell. For those that want to go back and have a look to September the 29th, 2025, that's when our original episode was there. Well, we talk a lot more about Dane and Dane's story and the things he's alluded to. But again, you have all sorts of interesting projects and processes and things going on, the membership and information. So how do people get hold of you?

[00:32:32] How do people find out more about you, Dane? Yeah. So if you need support with your gut health, please feel free to reach out. We do a free one hour consultation with people to discuss your case, your needs. And we do customized plans for IBD, inflammatory bowel disease or IBS. And I'd say that's the best way to reach out. You can find our website, Crohn's Clasest Lifestyle, the rest on Instagram or YouTube. But we want to put our best foot forward. And I think that what the world needs right now is they need a home that they can have trust and integrity with first and foremost.

[00:33:01] And then we need customization and we need to make sense of what we're not doing, but also what we are doing. And then it has to be something that we can actually do on a day-to-day basis. Have you written a book? I can't remember if you had or not. I never told you to. Yeah. Yes. I've been told many times. I actually spoke with a publisher the other day. It just hasn't been. I have my third child was born nine days ago and I've just been running this company and my team of practitioners. We've got so many people. We've just been so busy on what we're doing right now.

[00:33:31] I think I will eventually get to writing the book. Right now I have eBooks and I have journals and I have all these resources to support people has been the biggest thing. But I just, I'm here because I needed this and I needed to make sense of what I could do in the world, what I couldn't do in the world, how I could connect with others, date, how I could love, how I could love myself and how I could also not be self-righteous and find that balance, right?

[00:33:57] It's hard to get back in balance when you're kind of divorcing the world you were born into. We're in a new world and I think you're seeing it too. And it just doesn't make sense. And it's, what does a Friday night look like again? What does dinner look like? What does travel look like? Should I spend all this money on vacation? What am I getting? Am I hurting myself? How many of us have felt like we need a vacation from our vacation? Because we're just drunk eating trash food. This is not true. This is not truth. I hope that- But as you say, you've got to have fun. You've got to enjoy yourself.

[00:34:26] And there's lots of ways to do that. Dan, it's been a joy meeting you and seeing you again. You look younger than the last time I saw you, which is quite great. So this is great. And balance, not perfection. And I think that's the title of your book. If I may just suggest it. Balance, not perfection. Yes. Seeking balance in the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of freedom, the pursuit of health. And it's possible- I think my title was much snappier. I have to say. Yeah. Yeah. Yours was much snappier.

[00:34:55] It was yours after all. I just stole it. Yeah. I think if I was to name a book, it would be called The Natural Path. Okay. And yeah, I think everything that we really need to gain back our life, whether you're in Europe or U.S. or Africa or wherever, it's here on God's green earth. And we just do our best to get back in touch with that and remember. And that's one thing. When I was chronically sick, last thing I'd say is it was a lot of remembering that what

[00:35:22] is it to be addicted to snacks and alcohol and just things that were not really here. And if my great-grandfather never opened a Cheetos bag and my great-grandfather never opened a Coca-Cola, can I do the same and still be happy and still fall in love and still get and see the grass and the sun and give my friend a hug and be excited to be here and be alive? And I think that's like they remember the great remembering. And then all of a sudden, it's not about so much clinical research. It's about the wave. It's already there.

[00:35:51] It's a wave. It's there. It's happening. Write it. Supplements can go down and you don't need as much outside of you because you can stop doing instead of start doing. And I think if you're stuck right now, just focus on stop getting away from things that are poisoning you and then allow the good things. If you don't know what to do with probiotic, hyper-medic foods, you don't know what to do with getting rid of dysbiosis, stop having fake sugar because sugar is only found in fruit four months of the year. It's like, it's right there, Dr. Russell. It's right there.

[00:36:21] There's the first chapter of your book. Just see the AI chapter-round script of this thing. Dan, it's been a joy. Thank you so much for spending time with us again. Thanks so much, guys. It's a real thing to see you. You take care. Hi. I hope you found that episode useful and entertaining. If you want to support our work, please go to resilienceunravel.com and you can become a member there as well. You can also send us a question there and even apply to do a podcast.

[00:36:49] You can also leave a review on Apple Podcasts or any of the other podcast hosts of your choice, as well as getting hold of some useful resources about resilience and a whole lot more. Join us next time on the next edition of Resilience Unraveled.